When I came into HC Bolzano last year, everyone knows the situation wasn't so good. But what I said to the players then, and I still tell them now, is to build up our game day by day, step by step, game by game. Of course you want to get wins, but it's more important to get your game together. I told our guys back then not to worry about the standings or results, but when we reach the right level we're going to get points and win games. That's what happened, and we made the playoffs in our last game. Going into the post-season we didn't have anything to lose, but we played well and won it all!
Over the summer when I was back home in Finland, some people were asking me "Do they play hockey in Italy? I thought it was only football...". But the level in Italy, as well as in our own league, is good. Italy are in the Elite Group at the World Championships, and it's great for these national team players to get the experience of playing the best in Europe in the domestic season, too. Then they can learn what more they need to do to be able to compete with these top guys from Scandinavia on both the CHL and World Championship stages.
We had around 15 new guys coming into our team this season, and so for us it was a big thing that we could play really good teams early on. It takes some time to teach the new guys to get their game to where you want it to be, and maybe we can actually say we were a little bit surprised at how well we played in those opening four group stage games. Since then we've been back to our own league, and it's going ok.
"Don't cheat and peak behind the curtain before you get there"Kai Suikkanen
Now it's a little bit different for this next CHL game, compared to the other four. We played last night in our own league, and this morning we left for Poland already. But we'll be checking the videos of Tychy in their other CHL games, trying to work out their game plan, see what their strengths and weaknesses are, and then make our own plan based on what we find out.
But in the CHL we're not over the line yet, and so Wednesday is like a Stanley Cup final for us. We have to prepare for that game very well and make sure we're ready to pay the price to win. I'm always saying to my players "don't peak behind the curtain". We can't get ahead of ourselves, just as we didn't think about making the CHL during the EBEL playoffs - it's the reward you get at the end for going on the ice and playing well. We just go game by game, not looking behind the curtain, you don't cheat before you get there. When we do, we can open them wide and look all we want.
But until that moment comes, I'd rather not think about it!